


and i would die forevermore

by uptillthree



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Canon Compliant, Elysium, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Romance, i can't believe i wrote fluff and angst????? who AM i, my heart is melted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 00:15:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10752723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uptillthree/pseuds/uptillthree
Summary: Patroclus hears Achilles long before light floods his vision, long before their hands touch. He hears his voice like it is a lifeboat in a hurricane. Pa-tro-clus. Pa-tro-clus, his voice warm and loud and bringing him home. It is like the first breath of air, the ground becoming steady beneath his feet again, Achilles’ arms wrapping around him— he is not a ghost anymore. Neither of them are.(Patroclus, Achilles, and the eternity after.)





	and i would die forevermore

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like this, because it was such a joy to write it after not writing anything for such a long time. If you do, comments, kudos, bookmarks - anything would be really appreciated :)) God, I really love these two.

Patroclus hears Achilles long before light floods his vision, long before their hands touch. He hears his voice like it is a lifeboat in a hurricane. _Pa-tro-clus. Pa-tro-clus_ , his voice warm and loud and _home_ . It is like the first breath of air, the ground becoming steady beneath his feet again, Achilles’ arms wrapping around him— he is not _ghost_ anymore. Neither of them are.

The fields are golden around them. Elysium. Paradise.

Patroclus embraces Achilles back as if on instinct (it _is_ instinct; it is like coming home; his arms come to rest on Achilles’ hair and nape and back like muscle memory).

It takes him a little longer to realize Achilles is crying.

“You are shaking,” Patroclus whispers. Achilles' grip on him tightens.

He has never seen Achilles (this battle-hardened warrior, lover, leader, husband, half-a- _god_ ) weep. Achilles has always been— a storm. In life, he had been… everything. To see him in tears here, in Elysium, in the place for everything _but_ tears—it is unthinkable.

But these are tears of joy. It is relief in its extreme.

“I had thought,” Achilles whispers back, “that I had lost you, well and truly. You died and the fault was mine— I died and _still you were not with me_ —”

Ah. Patroclus’ heart, worn and tired, feels like it is chipping away at the corners. It is unfair. This is _Elysium_. He wants the happiness that was promised to him, in this field for victors, and nothing else. “My love,” he murmurs, “I am so sorry.”

Achilles’ shoulders tighten with guilt. Both their hearts are racing. “ _I_ am sorry,” he says, swallowing, his voice barely a breath in Patroclus’ ear, and Patroclus can feel the rushing of the coming flood, every dam between them splintering into nothing— “I am so— sorry, forgive me—”

“Hush,” Patroclus says, and the flood slows, for a while.

 

For a place for heroes, for joy and triumph and glory— the apologies last them days. A bruising, aching hurt breathes in both their chests, in those first few hours, at the very beginning of their eternity.

Questions, loud questions like _How could you fight the Trojans, when I told you not to? Why could I not find you? Why did you die for me?_ pour out of Achilles’ mouth.

Questions, sad ones like _Why would you not listen? Why were you so uncaring to the Greeks, to Briseis? How could you destroy yourself like that, after I had left?_ rip themselves, stinging, out of Patroclus’ mouth.

But louder and sadder than questions is the grief, and the repentance. _I’m sorry I left you alone in the land of the living, I never meant to; I’m sorry I cared for my pride more than your own heart, I hurt you; it was my fault_ — _no, mine_ — _forgive me_ — _no, forgive_ me.

 _I grieved for you even after my own death,_ Patroclus tells him.

 _I grieved for you until my own demise,_ answers Achilles. And it is a strange way of understanding each other, but for the moment it is enough.

 

After, it is easier.

When all the angry words have been said, when all the tears have left them, there is a strangling relief in the love that still remains. (Had he ever dared to call it that? Love? Had he ever said the words? He does so now, over and over and over— _I love you, I love you, I love you_ —and Achilles blushes, flustered in a way that Patroclus has never seen on earth.)

Here, they have eternity. All at once, Patroclus has too many words to say, and none at all. It feels as though it has been an age since his death; it feels as though he has never died at all.

He has too many words to say. He speaks of how the gods had lent him Achilles’ strength, in that final, fatal battle. How he had charged through armies, and soldiers had parted for the man in Achilles’ armor. How his arms had lifted spears with ease, for the first time in his life. How Sarpedon had fallen, unexplainably, at his hand. How it had felt so _simple_ , to be a warrior for the first and last time in his life

The choking anxiety of death and blood and fear had not frozen him then. _I don’t know how I did it,_ Patroclus confesses.

Achilles has been silent, blessedly silent the entire time Patroclus has been speaking, a strange occurrence—but here he smiles. Huffs out a laugh.

 _That strength was yours,_ he says, _in your bones and in your heart. Not mine. All yours, my warrior_.

 

Upon the Earth, there had never been enough time. There had always been—Achilles’ mother, or Achilles’ father, or Chiron, or the war. Compared to Elysium, their lives felt like a speck, tiny and insignificant. But here—

Here, they have eternity.

Patroclus wonders if they would ever have enough of each other, and just as easily, he knew the answer is: _No. Never_. Achilles’ hands roam his skin, and Patroclus’ lips mouth emotions he could not make into words, and he thinks, _it would never be enough, still_. He expects they might be that way forever: an eternity of pleasure.

But when their desires grew calm, their hearts still beat. When they were satisfied, sated, there remained the matter of who they were, and how much they meant to the other. And they had eternity.

So they talk in death as they had never been able to in life.

Patroclus tells him about the day he had first laid eyes on him. How Achilles hair had stood out, golden in the sun; how he had been jealous, and drawn to him from the first. Achilles tells him, _You were the first to ever question me, or to order me around. I liked that most about you; we were equals, always_.

Patroclus tells him, _You were kind to me from the first time we spoke, and it felt new_.

Achilles says, _I had wanted to kiss you long before you kissed me, though I did not know it. When you did that, it felt new. It threw me off, most of all because I think I expected to kiss_ you _, not to_ be _kissed_.

(At that, Patroclus kisses him.)

Patroclus says, _Our years with Chiron were my happiest ones,_ a fact they both knew but never deigned to say.

(At that, Achilles smiles widely in agreement, and replies, voice deep and fond, _Shall we relive it? Those golden days._ They do.)

They also speak of other things, things that need to be placed in open air, so that they would weigh less on their hearts. Like: _When I died, and I was not buried, and you kept my body by your side, I was with you. I was a spirit, chained to the earth. I felt your grief, and grieved for your sadness, and all the while, it hurt, waiting for you_.

And Achilles says, _When you fell to your death, I awaited mine. To bury you would have felt like giving up. I fought battles empty. It felt like forever, but it was only a matter of time_.

Patroclus whispers, his voice breaking, _When I died, my last thought was of you_.

Achilles murmurs, his breath hitching, _When you died, you filled my thoughts every day, and I imagined myself to be made of memories; of you_.

Patroclus tells him, his heart wrenching slowly: _When you died, our ashes were not mingled at once. My name was not placed beside yours_ — _not immediately_ — _and that was why our souls were lost. But it was your mother who let us find each other_.

Achilles tells him, his face desperate: _I have never feared blood or battle, but when I died at long last, and I was brought to the Isles of the Blessed, and you were not there_ —that _was true terror. Waiting for you_ — _it made even Elysium excruciating_.

Somehow, somewhere in between all the great, terrible words, Patroclus has taken Achilles’ hands in his. _But now_ , Patroclus says, _here, we have eternity._

Achilles smiles, slow and relieved. These words that come pouring out of their mouths would have been impossible in the world above, but here, in Elysium—everything is easy, simple, light. Here, these words were heavy, but they were not burdens on their chests.

 _We have eternity,_ Achilles replies, _and we have it together._

They would never run out of anything to talk about (of love to give; of desires to communicate). Patroclus was sure.

 

Patroclus worries, often, about Briseis. There are no nightmares here in Elysium, but he recalls her death, over and over again. Would she be in Asphodel? Did she drift upon the Earth, an unburied ghost no one would ever notice? Worst of all—was she in the fields of mourning, lost in the love Patroclus had never returned?

Through the fear, Achilles can only hold him.

An older, less significant worry, he confides, was that they would not be together in Elysium, even after burial, even in death. His selfish fear when they had both been alive, he tells Achilles, was that he would not have done enough to gain entrance to the Elysian fields, and that Achilles would be a worshipped victor in death, but he would be a worshipped victor alone. That Patroclus might be forgotten, lonely and unloved, in Asphodel, or worse.

He is surprised, and perhaps a little hurt, when Achilles laughs. But Achilles’ smile is warm when he does so, with not a hint of mocking, and Patroclus stares.

 _You?_ Achilles asks. _In any place_ except _Elysium, the Isles of the Blessed, and good, and kind?_ He laughs again, as if the idea is unimaginable to him. _You, best of Myrmidons_ , Achilles reminds him, that smile still upon his face. Had he been this kind, this sweet, in life? (Yes.) His hands cup Patroclus’ face. Patroclus tilts his head up for a kiss.

 _Best of men_.

 

 _I think_ , Achilles tells him once, _that if I had been given rebirth instead of Elysium, I would have found you. Or you would have found me_.

Patroclus blinks, surprised at the thought. _Rebirth?_ Never before has he given it a thought. _But of course_ , he says; in this one small thing, he has no doubt. _You would have found me anywhere_.

 _And you?_ Achilles asks, teasingly, smiling.

 _Me_ — Patroclus smiles back. _I would have known you in all my lives_.


End file.
